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Opinion

Barefaced hypocrisy at Sochi Olympic Games

By Akaash Maharaj

Sun., Feb. 23, 2014timer4 min. read

In the soaring words of the Olympic Charter, the ultimate purpose of the Olympic movement is “the preservation of human dignity” to the exclusion of “discrimination of any kind.” But high words cast a long shadow over low deeds, and much of the global drama around the Sochi Olympics has been a lesson in barefaced hypocrisy.

When Russia was criticized in the international media for its 2013 law banning “homosexual propaganda,” Vladimir Putin took to the airwaves to reassure the world that the Sochi Olympics would still be free of any discrimination.

Since then, Russian authorities have arrested approximately 24 people for protesting in favour of gay rights, including four people whose crime was to hold up a banner bearing the words of the Olympic Charter.

When the IOC was inundated with demands that it oppose the Russian law, former IOC president Jacques Rogge pleaded impotence: “The International Olympic Committee cannot be expected to have an influence on sovereign affairs of a country,” he said.

Yet, at every Olympic Games, the IOC makes extensive demands on the sovereign affairs of nations, which governments must meet as a condition of hosting the Games.

It was to satisfy such demands that the British Parliament passed the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006 and included sections to give the Olympic committees extraordinary rights over ordinary English-language words that could never have been privately trademarked under existing laws, words such as “games,” “summer” and “London.” The act also compelled the secretary of state to “have regard to any requests or guidance from the International Olympic Committee” in creating further regulations.

Protecting its marketing strategy was important enough to the IOC for it to influence the “sovereign affairs” of the United Kingdom, to change domestic law and curtail freedom of expression. Protecting the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people was simply not important enough to the IOC for it to exercise a similar level of influence on Russian law.

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When citizens called on western governments to act, many politicians were happy to curry popular favour by making denunciatory speeches and political statements. “We wanted to make it very clear that we do not abide by discrimination in anything, including discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation,” said President Barack Obama, shortly before deploying a delegation to Sochi pointedly comprised of openly gay retired athletes.

Yet, Obama’s clarity does not appear to extend to the eight states in his own country that also have laws prohibiting “promotion of homosexuality” to children. Alabama and Texas go furthest, requiring public schools to teach children “that homosexuality is not a lifestyle acceptable to the general public.” More brazenly still, they insist that schools teach “that homosexual conduct is a criminal offence,” notwithstanding the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated American anti-sodomy laws 11 years ago.

It is easy for politicians to cast themselves as heroic figures by railing against actions in other nations. But when they are silently complicit in similar abuses on their own soil, they not only expose the emptiness of their theatrics, but also degrade the principles for which they purport to speak.

If the Sochi Olympics have but one lesson, it is that no one has a monopoly on virtue.

Putin poses as the protector of children, while making gay youth outcasts in their own country. The IOC poses as an organization above politics, while unabashedly bending national politics to its commercial interests. Obama poses as a defender of human rights by grappling with foreign governments, while he shies away from the fight in domestic politics.

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But the Sochi Olympics may yet help realize the grand words of the Olympic Charter, not in spite of all this hypocrisy, but because of it.

The Games have brought Russia’s homophobic law to global prominence and have motivated ordinary people around the world to join hands with the very individuals the law was meant to isolate. They have made the words of the Olympic Charter a rallying cry among athletes and spectators who have sought to hold the IOC to its rhetoric. They have caused politicians to take a stand on the international stage, which in time may reassure those politicians that there is a constituency for the same principles of justice in domestic politics.

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Nothing in Sochi has done more to honour and advance the Olympic Charter than the worldwide fight for equality unleashed by these Games.

Akaash Maharaj is a triple gold medallist for Canada at the International Championships of Equestrian Skill-at-Arms, and a former CEO of Canada’s Olympic and Paralympic Equestrian team. www.Maharaj.org

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